


you are a perpetual feeling

by scintillant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Romantic Soulmates, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintillant/pseuds/scintillant
Summary: It’s barely a few weeks after he witnesses that conversation that he wakes up in the middle of the night, panting and breathless. He doesn’t know how he knows this, but his soulmate—she—has been born. Something inside him had lain dormant for years, but now it’s awake.Ben feels different.He feels right.Or:Ben Solo spend the first thirty-five years of his life wondering if he'll ever meet his soulmate, growing bitter and resentful as a result. What happens when his company's latest hire, Rey Niima, turns out to be everything he’s been waiting for?
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 79
Kudos: 286





	you are a perpetual feeling

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to [Alex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newseptembers) for betaing this and making the moodboard!
> 
> I started writing this on July 11th and got distracted by other things (mainly my sugar husband fic), but really wanted to revisit, finish and post it. I have mixed feelings about it but am trying to get over my writer's block. This first chapter is pretty bleak, so do be warned. 
> 
> I promise that it has a 100% happy ending!
> 
> The rating is now M until I see how explicit chapter 2 ends up being, so it may end up going up. Other than that, tags will be updated as appropriate and feel free to let me know if I miss anything. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Ben’s life seems normal up until a few months after his tenth birthday.

Like any other child, he’s loud and rambunctious at times, a little stubborn and defiant, but nothing out of the ordinary. Even as a young child, he understands that his parents are important people— _the_ Leia Organa and Han Solo—that they’re wealthier than most other people, and that everyone’s nice to him.

Their house is bigger than most of his friends’, he gets to buy new games and toys as soon as they’re released, and when adults realize who he is, they tell him how lucky he must be.

For the most part, though, Ben prefers to be alone. To read and write and practice his calligraphy. Sometimes he puts together puzzles or plays with action figures, imagining that he’s in outer space or that he’s a cowboy.

He doesn’t understand why this is a problem until he overhears his parents whispering together after dinner, his mother’s neatly manicured nails digging deep into his father’s arm, his father rubbing soothing circles into her back.

“He’s fine, Leia. He’s still young—a little shy—”

“He’s _ten_ ,” his mother hisses back. “He doesn’t have any friends, Han. Not at school—”

“He’s _fine_ ,” his father insists. “He just needs to find some hobbies. Maybe we can sign him up for some team sports or something.”

“If he doesn’t interact with people, how is he going to find his soulmate? I—Han, I’m just worried about him.”

Ben sees his father look down at his mother’s face, the way his hand cups her cheek, how gently he is as he pulls her closer to him and rocks her soothingly.

_Soulmate_.

He knows that they exist, of course, he isn’t _that_ oblivious. He’s just always thought of them in the terms of old, married people—like his parents. He’s never thought of a soulmate in reference to himself.

It’s barely a few weeks after he witnesses that conversation that he wakes up in the middle of the night, panting and breathless. He doesn’t know how he knows this, but his soulmate— _she_ —has been born. Something inside him had lain dormant for years, but now it’s awake.

Ben feels different.

He feels right.

____

That feeling lasts for the next five years, as Ben grows and goes through life. Occasionally, he’ll feel a sudden pang of sadness or frustration that he knows isn’t his, and he knows that wherever she is, she must be upset.

In his freshman year of high school, they’re taught briefly about soulmates in biology. Almost everyone has one. Typically, the soul bond is there from the moment the younger mate is born and lasts until death. It’s weak initially—just random bursts of thoughts or emotions, maybe even sharing dreams—until the pair finally meets.

It’s then that the bond becomes permanent, and they truly become two halves of the same soul. It’s like having someone else in the back of your mind, in your heart.

Ben finally understands all the silent looks between his parents—how anytime his mother would cry, his father would frantically burst through the door. He’d always wondered how his father knew that his mother needed him, but now he understands. It’s the soul bond, and everything he’s felt the past few years begins to be just a bit clearer.

The worst, their biology teacher explains, is when one of the soulmates goes through a traumatic event. The other half of the pair, even if the bond hasn’t been completed yet, will be able to experience all of the emotional turmoil.

It can be permanently damaging.

Mrs. Holdo looks at them all with a serious expression, drumming her fingers against the black lab table as she looks out at the students. “If any of you experiences overwhelming bursts of negative emotions—fear, stress, sadness, anything—and you are unable to deal with them, I strongly encourage you to seek out the care of a mental health professional. The damages caused by experiencing a soulmate’s trauma can be crippling.”

The entire class is oddly silent as they grapple with everything they’ve learned in the thirty minutes that Mrs. Holdo was speaking. The giggles and snorts that typically come from teenagers with discussions of love and romance had died off as she’d progressed to the darker, bleaker side of the soul bond.

No one dares ask what would happen if one half of dyad dies.

They all seem to understand that the other half will die as well.

____

Ben spends the next few weeks after his biology lesson trying to focus on controlling his emotions. He knows that his soulmate is young, around five years old now, and he can’t expect her to be aware that her emotions will affect him.

But _he’s_ aware, and he doesn’t want to hurt her. The natural instinct to protect her, no matter who or where she is overwhelms him. He tries to focus on things that make him happy, even when he feels lonely because his parents are—as always—too busy to think about him. Anytime he feels any kind of sad or upset or angry, he goes on a run or works on his calligraphy or practices sparring with his uncle Luke.

It’s all pointless. Nothing he does even matters because in the end, it’s not his feelings that hurt her. It’s the other way around.

He ends up waking up in the middle of the night, much like had five years ago, except this time, he’s in agonizing pain. His screams are so loud that they wake his parents up and they come running to see what’s wrong.

Ben’s heart hurts—it _burns_ —and he experiences a swirl of emotions he’s never felt this strongly before—fear, loneliness, abandonment. Underneath them all, there is a tiny burst of hope, but everything else is so strong that he physically feels it all. He heaves as his dad lifts him from underneath the arms so that he can stick his head in the toilet and empty the contents of his stomach.

Leia is frantic, crying in her pajamas as she tries to call his doctor. Han hasn’t touched Ben in _years_ , but he’s here, letting Ben lean against him as he sobs on the bathroom floor.

“Can you describe what you’re feeling, Ben? The doctor wants to know.”

He can’t even _talk_ , and he feels his dad shaking his head at his mom.

“There’s no point, Leia. It’s his soulmate. You can tell.”

Even though he’s taller than his dad now, all gangly arms and legs, he pushes his face into his dad’s neck, trying to get away from what he’s feeling—what’s happening to her.

It feels like he’s going to die.

____

His parents take him from specialist to specialist, to see if they can help. The pain hurts so much that Ben has to stay home from school for a month, has to drop out of all of his extracurriculars. The only thing that seems to help is being sedated, and Ben sleeps _all the time_.

Even when he goes back to school, his anger lives under his skin like an excruciating itch that won’t go away, harsh and intolerable. Ben, who’d been known his whole life as an exemplary student, starts failing assignments and classes. He’s volatile in a way he’s never been before, snapping back at his teachers.

Finally—eventually—one of the specialists tells his parents that there’s nothing to be done.

“I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Solo. The only thing we can do is give him medications to help alleviate the symptoms a bit, but until his soulmate moves past this, he won’t be able to either. I would recommend sending him back to school, keeping him busy. It’ll be hard, but there’s really nothing else we can do.”

His parents decide to send him away to live with his uncle Luke. He tells them that he doesn’t want to go, but he knows that he’s ruining his mother’s career—the press is watching how the Senator Organa’s son keeps getting into fights at school—and they force him to go anyways.

The new feelings that come out of this—hatred, anger, rage—are all his.

____

Living with his uncle Luke proves to be a disaster, and college can’t come soon enough. He’s able to crack down and focus on school enough to get into a good school—Coruscant University—but his soulmate’s feelings of panic and abandonment last.

Ben tries to date, but anytime he gets close enough to a girl to do something, he panics at the thought of his mate.

It’s frustrating, being this alone and repressed. His relationship with his parents is irreparable—tainted with bitter resentment. The amount of time he spends with his cock in his hand between deep homework sessions irritates him, but the idea of touching someone—being with someone that isn’t her—makes him feel sick.

He doesn’t even have friends, and he realizes quickly on that he’s gained a reputation of being an asshole amongst his classmates. Though it rankles, he can’t deny that they’re right.

Ben’s just tired all the time. Tired of being angry at everyone and everything, tired of solitude, tired of feeling hurt.

He wonders how long he’ll be alone, if he’ll ever even meet her, but resigns him to self-imposed celibacy until they’re finally together.

It dawns on him, more than once, that there are billions of people in the world—that they may never meet. 

He may very well die alone, choked with bitterness and resentment.

And yet, something gives him hope.

____

The hope comes from her—from the dreams they share.

Some of the dreams scare him, make his heart twist up in fear and his mouth go dry. Those dreams—like the one of being somewhere hot and dry, digging for food in a dumpster or the one where he’s being chased by someone bigger and stronger than he is, and he can feel the blood pumping in his veins as he runs—make him shake and tremble.

Other dreams, filled with hope and love and longing make him wake with a gasp, reaching out in bed for someone isn’t there before he sighs and forces himself to go back to sleep.

He can’t control any of it, but occasionally a word or stray thought will pop into his head as he’s reading or sitting at his work computer. He begins to write them all down in a little black Moleskine, his little observations of her, clinging to them like a lifeline in his moments of despair.

Ben learns that her favorite color is green—because it’s the color of grass and leaves—and that she likes the feeling of the sun on her skin.

He knows she sleeps restlessly at night, because he does too, and that she’s alone, wherever she is.

He knows her birthday—April 10th.

He always wishes for more about her, so that he’ll be able to understand her.

_Where does she live? Where does she work? What does her laugh sound like? Does she want to meet him? Does she think about him every moment of every day, like he does her? Will she love him?_

But he can’t control any of it, so he takes what little scraps he’s given and tucks them into a safe place in his heart.

____

He finally meets her when he’s thirty-five.

“Mr. Solo?”

His secretary’s voice is soft and hesitant, and Ben wants to strangle her for interrupting him. He was just finally making progress and now he’s going to be derailed by something that’s likely unnecessary—

“Kaydel.” Ben tries to keep his voice even and steady as he speaks.

“Mr. Solo. The new hire is here. Rey Niima? Mr. Hux wanted you to meet her before she starts working today.”

Ben rubs his temples in annoyance. Hux always insists that as CEO, Ben should meet all of the employees when they first start working. It’s supposed to foster a sense of family and community within the company, but Ben _hates_ it. All of his employees are scared of him, and rightfully so. Meeting him doesn’t help anything.

It just makes him realize how stupid everyone else is, and how he wishes he could do it all himself without wasting his time on other people.

He’s suddenly swept away by a sense of nervousness and anxiety, and he pulls out the little notebook from his desk drawer, drawing a thin line underneath the latest entry before writing today’s in neat, block letters:

JUNE 25TH, 9:45 AM: NERVOUS. ANXIOUS.

He pauses for a minute to try to decipher the feeling before continuing:

ANTICIPATION? BIG LIFE EVENT.

Closing the notebook, he slides it into the drawer as he mulls over it. She’s calmed a lot over the past few years, but this is different. Something big is happening to her today, maybe she’s moving, or it’s the first day of something big. A new degree, or maybe a new job—

“Mr. Solo?”

The voice is beautiful, with an accent he can’t quite place, but his thoughts are still in his head as he stands, buttoning his suit jacket as he rounds the desk, eyes on his feet.

Sticking his hand out to shake hers automatically, he lifts his gaze to meet hers. The minute their eyes meet he feels dizzy and lightheaded. All of a sudden, the ache in his chest is gone, and he can feel her in his mind.

\-- _so tall, and handsome, and oh, is it_ him _—_

Ben’s mind is racing a mile a minute, his thoughts incoherent as he looks at her.

_\--it’s her, she’s here, and she’s so small, and beautiful, and his employee—_

Something in his brain clicks and he’s racing to his office door, shutting it before he turns around to look at her.

Objectively, he knows that she’s likely above average height for a woman, but she’s still so much smaller than him. She’s thin— _because she was hungry all of those years_ , his brain supplies—and beautiful, with freckles and golden skin and brown hair.

She— _Rey—_ is staring at him, mouth agape, and his tongue feels heavy in his mouth as he tries to think of something to say. Logically, he knows that his reaction has to do with the soul bond, but he can’t remember if your soulmate is your soulmate _because_ you would naturally be attracted to them, or if the bond is what makes them attractive.

It doesn’t matter, though. Because she’s here.

He realizes belatedly that she can likely hear his thoughts like he can hear hers. They’re all jumbled and confused, and part of him can’t tell what’s his and what’s hers, but certain things stand out to him— _he’s so big_ —and he has to sit in one of the chairs to bury his head in his hand.

“I’m sorry. I—don’t know how to deal with this,” he says, looking up at her. “Please, sit.”

Rey drops her large tote on the floor and sits in the chair across from him, her hands folded in her lap as they just stare at one another.

The current healthcare guidelines highly recommend that bonded couples see a professional within a few days of meeting, to learn how to control the bond so it’s not too overwhelming. He remembers that from all of his readings.

Right now, though, he’s just so relieved to see her, to know that she’s here, that she’s okay.

“I was worried about you,” he says finally, and she looks at him in surprise. “Something happened—when you were five? I was so worried—”

“My parents left,” she says simply, and he nods. It seems so obvious, now that he knows. 

“And you,” she says, her hand twisting in the fabric of her pencil skirt. “You were so angry—”

“Because of what happened to you,” he says simply. “It, uh. I didn’t know how to deal with any of it. I’m estranged from my family now.”

He doesn’t know why he’s telling her all of this, so soon after meeting her, although he _does_ know. Because she’s his other half. She’d know it even if he didn’t tell her.

Rey makes a small sound, something sad and soft, and he can feel her sadness for him, so he reaches his hand out, without thinking, squeezing hers in it.

“It’s okay. You’re here now.”

She nods, biting her lip before squeezing his hand back. It feels right, her hand in his, and he doesn’t let go as they stare at one another.

“Is there any point in pretending that we don’t both want this?” she asks.

Ben shakes his head. “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

She nods again. “How old are you? I always wondered—”

“Thirty-five.”

Nodding again, she stands, moving closer to him. “Is it always going to be like this? Like I can feel you inside of me?”

He’s not sure, but he nods slowly anyways. “I think so.”

“Can I sit?” she asks, but she doesn’t need to. She already knows what he’s feeling, so she gently pushes his legs apart to sit in his lap.

Ben’s never done this before, had anyone sit in his lap. He doesn’t even think he’s touched anyone other than to shake their hand in _years_ , since he tried to date in college.

“I’m so glad I found you,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly, and he nods again.

“Me, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> My [Twitter](https://twitter.com/_scintillant).


End file.
